Data compression is an often requested feature for storage devices to allow a greater amount of data to be stored in a storage device, such as a hard disk drive, solid state drive (SSD), etc. Certain SSDs include an embedded hardware compression module to compress data written to and decompress data read from the SSD. Including such additional compression hardware in the SSD increases the unit cost. Compression can also be delivered to a storage device by compressing data in a host operating system, such as Microsoft® Windows®. (Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation throughout the world).
There is a need in the art for improved techniques for dynamically increasing the capacity of a storage device.